I put my hand on top of his and squeezed.
He looked over at me and dropped his gaze to the ground, a little of the fight going out of him.
Relief rushed in, and I answered for Nash. “No, Officer. Axel didn’t have any suicidal thoughts that we knew of.”
Even without knowing Axel for the past few years, since he’d taken ownership of Psychos, I knew he would never commit suicide. If he’d been inclined to end his life, he would have done it well before now. God knew he’d had more than enough reason to with the way we’d grown up.
But that wasn’t him. I knew it in my heart.
There’d been someone else standing in this yard tonight. While Axel had been warning me of danger, someone had turned a gun on him and pulled the trigger.
I’d heard my brother die.
Another sob built up in my throat, and I tried to swallow it down, but it was a losing battle.
Nash’s gaze turned tortured, and he glared at the police officer. “Are we under arrest or what? Because if we are, you better tell me now so I can call a lawyer. If we aren’t, I’m done answering questions and I’m taking her home.”
The officer grumbled something about them contacting us with further questions, but Nash was already guiding me toward the passenger seat of the BMW.
I stared up at him through watery eyes. “Is this really happening?”
He brushed a stray lock of hair off my face, tucking it behind my ear. “Yeah, Blissy girl. It is. Get in. I’m taking you home.” He reached around me and opened the door.
I didn’t argue like I had earlier that night, outside the club. This time, I let him put me in the car.
We were halfway back to Providence before I even considered the fact he’d left his Jeep at the crime scene. “Wait, Nash. Stop. Go back. I live all the way in Providence. How are you going to get home? You’ll be hard-pressed getting a cab or an Uber at this time of night. Not one that will take you into Saint View anyway.” Nothing good happened in Saint View after dark.
He shook his head, keeping his gaze on the road. “Just tell me where you’re going. You still live with your old man in that fancy-pants house up on the hill?”
I nodded. “Sort of. Technically that’s my address, but I don’t stay there much these days. As big as that house is, it’s a little cramped there with Nichelle, Verity, and Everett.” I glanced over at him. “That’s my stepmom and my younger brother and sister.”
“Shit, you’ve got other siblings? How old are they?”
“Six and eight.”
“Shit, yeah. Handful.”
“I like kids. And they’re good ones.”
Nash slowed the car at an intersection and waited for me to direct.
I pointed to his left, and he made the turn.
His eyes flickered in my direction. “So, you’re staying with the fiancé then? Husband?”
“Boyfriend.”
“How come he’s not your fiancé?”
“He hasn’t asked.”
“How come you haven’t asked him?”
I twisted to watch him drive, grateful for the conversation, because right now, anything was a good distraction from everything I’d seen tonight. “I don’t know. I mean, I do. We’ve only been together a year. It’s too soon.”
“Or you don’t love him.”
I frowned at the certainty in his voice. “What?”
He shrugged. “When you know, you know. Time doesn’t make a difference.”
I sat back in my seat, my cheeks heating. “That’s not true. People need time to get to know each other before they leap into a commitment.”
“If you say so.”
That felt decidedly like a brush-off, and any other time I might have argued some more. But we were already on Caleb’s street, and I didn’t have it in me. “You can just park in the driveway. It’s that one over there on the left.”
Nash let out a low whistle. “Does he rob banks for a living?”
“More like runs them.”
“Fuck me.”
I bit my lip. “Thanks for driving me home.”
“Wasn’t gonna let you drive yourself. You were trembling like a leaf.”
I held a hand up. The tremor was still visible, so I tucked it beneath my thighs. “Do you have any idea who did this?”
Nash let out a long sigh. “Nothing concrete. But, Bliss, there’s probably a lot of things you don’t know about your brother. Hell, there’s a lot of things I don’t know about him. Clearly. If he knew he was in this sort of trouble, he didn’t tell me.” He looked at the clock. “It’s really late. Or early, I guess. Your man in there is probably frantic with worry over you.”